Avalon Chapter 2023 Annual report

November 2023

At the 2022 AGM David Ellis was reaffirmed as Chair, and Yvonne Earle and Barry Darby agreed to continue as Chapter Contact Person and Treasurer respectively.

Globally there has been an increasing awareness of the dangers associated with the climate crisis—spurred on by the dramatic increase in forest fires, floods, scorching temperatures, melting ice and severe weather events around the world. There has been increasing pressure on governments to act decisively, but with a few exceptions, they are lagging behind public opinion—supporting the fossil fuel industry, nuclear energy  and large corporations and doing very little to reduce GHG emissions to a level that would limit temperature rise to under 2.4C. In Newfoundland and Labrador the provincial government continues to ignore it’s own contribution to the climate crisis and now sees itself as an industrial-scale green energy producer through it’s enthusiastic support for hydrogen/ammonia production. It is even funding research into ways to capitalize on the unproven unicorn carbon capture and storage industry.

Members continue to be active in many areas for social justice and a better environment. As well as working on campaigns and issues of personal interest they are keen advocates for such options as radical systems change, reducing consumption, encouraging small rather than mega projects and considering the overall health of the planet through such a lens as the 9 planetary boundaries.

Organizational Changes
Members agreed to change the Chapter name to Avalon/NL to better represent the current membership.
Members agreed to establish a Rotating Chair, Minute Taker and Secretary/Chapter Contact person from November.

Membership
Chapter membership has been solid this year with all twelve members continuing to support the collective work of the Chapter. The one new member (Andrew) who attended a regular meeting in September has not participated since then.

Many thanks to Yvonne Earle for her essential work as our Chapter Contact Person and Minute Taker and to Barry Darby for continuing to undertake the role as Treasurer this year. Thanks also to Kathleen who kindly chaired the April meeting.

Chapter meetings
Ten monthly meetings were held this year via Zoom and these continue to be very well attended with between eight and eleven members participating each time. The overall attendance rate was over 80%. Meetings were not scheduled during July and August again in line with many Atlantic Chapters as this is a busy period for many people. The virtual meetings have allowed the four members from outside the Avalon region to participate fully in the work of the Chapter and others have been able to join in from various parts of the globe when necessary. In order to accommodate all members, meetings were moved to the morning.

Our regular meetings continue to be a popular and lively forum for members to provide updates on their activities and areas of interest; discuss current issues and campaigns; and exchange opinions and resources.

Regional and National meetings
David and/or Yvonne attended all the monthly Atlantic Regional meetings on Zoom this year. No Avalon/NL Chapter member attended the in-person, annual Atlantic Regional Meeting held Nov 18-19 2023.  We said goodbye to Mary Best, interim Regional Organizer in May—Angela Giles returned to the Atlantic Regional organizer position in June.

CoC National AGM was held June 17, 2023 and several Chapter members attended by Zoom. We submitted a resolution jointly with the North Shore (NS) Chapter on wind farm development—it was passed. There have been co-chair changes through the year to accommodate parental leave and Ravi’s resignation. In 2024 The Council will return to a single ED – Christina Warner.
Chapter members have attended national campaign meetings (pharmacare, just transition) webinars and the recent strategic planning for 2024.

Communications
Through David’s efforts the Chapter has maintained a presence on the Council’s Tru.net communication hub although other members are not using it. We steadfastly continue to communicate via email and listserve mailings from outside the Chapter. Thanks are due to our regional organizers for booking and opening up our Zoom meetings.

In order to prevent email overload the Chair urged members to stop using ‘reply all’ when replying privately to the sender of an email.

In-person Actions

• as part of the CoC Pharmacare campaign members had a very successful day at St John’s farmer’s market in July and also participated in a national phone blitz.
  
• participated at a Port au Port rally at the Assessment office, St John’s
  
• attended the Friday’s For A Future rally in St John’s in September
  
• action at St John’s City Hall in support of the local Light Trespass campaign
  
• participated at LGBTQ+ events in St John’s
  

 
Campaigns
The Chapter was involved in many campaigns during the year. These included:

• Port au Port WEGH2 project—members have been actively engaged in an ongoing campaign throughout the year with particular support for the local Environmental Transparency Committee and demand for a Federal Environmental Impact Assessment.
  
• Light Trespass in St John’s
• CoC Pharmacare
• CoC Just Transition
• Bay du Nord—support for the Ecojustice supreme court hearing action in Ottawa
• Nuclear—members monitored the nuclear news and were actively engaged in various campaigns to safely deal with nuclear waste, and to prevent the development and utilization of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)

Working with the Council of Canadians national organization

• by co-sponsoring two resolutions at the AGM
  
• on the Chapter handbook
• on training material for Tru.net
• on the Port au Port campaign
• co-writing a series of three blog post for the CoC entitled ‘Unpacking Climate Solutions: False, Unjust or Real?’

Working with Others
The Chapter has been working with other environmental groups and is keen to develop relationships further. The groups include:

• Social Justice Coop
  
• Enviro Watch NL
• Sierra Club
• Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Network (NLEN)
• NL Just Transition Group
• NL Health Coalition

Members’ ongoing work
Our members continue to actively work on their own projects, campaigns and involvement with other organizations. These include:

• fisheries
  
• hydro/megadams
• wind/hydrogen development in NL
• the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE)
• NL Environmental conference

Endnote
Many thanks to all our members for their active participation in trying to make this a better, more equitable and sustainable world.

David Ellis Chair

22nd November 2023